Food or edible material: processes – compositions – and products – Processes – Preparation of product which is dry in final form
Patent
1984-06-19
1985-12-10
Hunter, Jeanette M.
Food or edible material: processes, compositions, and products
Processes
Preparation of product which is dry in final form
426475, 426476, A23L 104
Patent
active
045579393
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to a method for improving the solubility of a gelling agent hardly soluble in water, more particularly to a method for converting a gelling agent hardly soluble in water to one readily soluble in water.
TECHNICAL BACKGROUND
As hardly soluble gelling agents, gelatin and agar-agar are generally known. For dissolving gelatin in water, first gelatin powder or gelatin sheet must be swollen with water then the mixture of gelatin and water is heated. For dissolving agar-agar in water, on the other hand, the agar-agar must be heated in hot water and the temperature must be maintained at at least 80.degree. C. for a long time.
Under these circumstances, methods have been proposed and/or developed for improving the solubility of gelatin, and the results of the research conducted for this purpose have been reported.
Japanese Patent Publication No. 31,911/1973 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,362,830, for example, disclose methods including steps wherein gelatin powder is first dissolved in water together with an equivalent amount or more of sugars, then the solution thus obtained is dried by means of such methods as spray-drying, etc. On the other hand, Japanese Patent Disclosure No. 162,949/1980 discloses a method wherein water-containing gelatin is heated by use of microwaves to melt and dry it rapidly, then the dried gelatin is frozen and subsequently it is crushed into powder in the frozen condition.
According to the former method, however, a large amount of sugars must be used as the quality-improving agent, and moreover, the resulting gelatin powder is a mixed powder of gelatin and sugars. Therefore it cannot be said that these methods improve the quality of gelatin itself. The latter method, on the other hand, indispensably requires the steps of adding water for forming water-containing gelatin; drying for removing the water content previously added thereto; and crushing this dried gelatin in frozen condition, and thus the method is quite complicated.
On the other hand, no method for improving the solubility of agar-agar has been proposed or developed so far at all.
DISCLOSURE OF THE PRESENT INVENTION
Under such circumstances as set forth above, the inventors of the present invention earnestly carried out research for developing a novel method for improving the solubility of hardly soluble gelling agents including gelatin and agar-agar through very simple processes without additionally using any improving agent such as sugar or the like. And as the result, they have discovered that the solubility of a gelling agent can be effectually improved by use of a non-equilibrium plasma.
The main object of the present invention is to provide a novel method for improving the functional characteristic of gelling agents such as gelatin and agar-agar, that is, a method for converting a gelling agent hardly soluble in water into a readily soluble gelling agent.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a gelling agent readily soluble in water.
These objects and the other object of the present invention can be achieved by contacting the gelling agent with a non-equilibrium plasma.
The method of the present invention includes the steps of applying a high frequency wave irradiated to a low pressure gaseous atmosphere to generate therein a non-equilibrium plasma, and contacting the gelling agent with the non-equilibrium plasma generated in this way.
Generally, a "plasma" is defined as the ionized gaseous condition formed when a substance absorbs an extremely high energy and therey said substance is dissociated into electrified particles. Plasmas can roughly be classified into equilibrium plasmas and non-equilibrium plasmas. An equilibrium plasma is formed by electric discharge such as arc discharge under a relatively high gaseous pressure condition, whereas a non-equilibrium plasma, also called a "low temperature plasma", is generally formed under a low gaseous pressure condition. Accordingly, the temperature of a non-equilibrium plasma is lower than that of an equilibrium plas
REFERENCES:
patent: 2948622 (1960-08-01), Cahn
patent: 3494723 (1970-02-01), Gray
patent: 3620764 (1971-11-01), Watkins
patent: 3876373 (1975-04-01), Glyptis
patent: 3904429 (1975-09-01), Eastman
Higashine Seiji
Hioki Hiroko
Nomura Yukihiro
Sengoku Koji
Shibuki Masaru
House Food Industrial Co. Ltd.
Hunter Jeanette M.
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